First of all, my hubby and I have decided we either have to get hearing aids or use captions because Jack's incessant whispering is driving us nutty. "What? What did he say?"

The doctor was toast when he opened the door, and I have to say that is one dysfunctional family, 2 hours of the doctor treating the dying son only to be paid in lead. Back they go home and Pop is peeved and it looks like Josef is going to end up like the doctor but instead Pop pops the dying son and gives Josef a big kiss on the cheek. Pop says 'Don't ever disobey me again.' and Josef won't because his pop had been eating some Russian Borscht with a lot of garlic and he never wants that punishment ever again!

Dana is a twit. Kevin isn't going to be happy with a piddly amount of money! Of course he will want more. (How did she get that top secret clearance again?) I'm so tired of Dana that I wish she WOULD visit the server room.

Renee... you need a shower while waiting for Jack/Muir who will be there in 20 minutes? She's too young to remember the movie "Pyscho" that's for sure. I am sure that Vlad is going to be sorry for messing with Renee, she's not in the best mental place and I don't think she'll settle for cutting off a thumb.

Did I mention that Dana is a twit? Chloe has her stink eye on Dana. Be warned Dana... Chloe is not the least bit jealous, but suspicious? Yes!

Jack/Muir was a little lax in watching his back, front and sides as he transferred the money but luckily for him Ortiz has skills as a sniper. Who knew Jack could speak German?

Here's a head scratcher. Is Hassan's bodyguard a bad guy and Jamad a good guy or is Jamad a bad guy and one of the security people gave him a signal by scratching his nose that they will hijack the limo so he can join Hassan's brother. The bodyguard calls Kayla Hassan so maybe he is the bad guy. Whatever, she's confused now because he has to take Jamad to the Embassy before he can tell her whatever it is he has to tell her.

Only 6 more days for another hour of 24!! (And Jack says Renee has him!!)

Bad move Madam Lady President Lady, you shouldn't blab inform another diplomat about the nuclear rods but not to worry, you have everything under control. (Uh huh!)

Dana/aka/Twit, what can go wrong? It will only take a few minutes to guide Kevin and his redneck buddy to the money. Being the smart guys they are, they will just grab the envelope and leave so no need to keep track of them via that handy hidden camera. NO it's NOT right Kevin, it's LEFT. Too confusing, code, hallway, locker, code.. too many numbers. 4660, who could remember that?

Chloe maybe just maybe you should kind of pay attention to what Arlo is trying to tell you even if he is a sexist pig or something. (However Dana/Twit, your multitasking is going to come back to haunt you because as mentioned before Chloe has her stink eye on you...)

So many subplots, how to keep up. Pop feels bad about shooting sonny boy but he couldn't bear for him to suffer. Not to mention, he did it for his family and he hopes his oldest son remembers what he did so they could all be wealthy even his grandchildren. (If Pop doesn't pop off son #1 for being ungrateful.) He wants his dead son buried but no time to call the undertaker, just bury him in the back yard but be sure to do it right and pray over him so he has a good sendoff.

Vlad gives Jack something to drink while he calls his friends to ask about the nuclear rods. But it's 10:22 PM and some go to bed really early and don't like being called so late. Renee just keeps nagging, keep calling, call them again, who cares if they were sleeping, they're up now since you work em up! Vlad says NO one sells this kind of thing but Renee wants the money. Five million is nothing when it could be Fifty million. (Besides, we have more time left on the clock.)

Dana/Twit/Houston, we have a problem. We got a little greedy, threw all kinds of stuff on the floor. (No one will notice that!) We heard someone in the hallway. Now what? Dana the genius says hide and then go past him and get out. OOPS, Kevin's buddy bashes the cop's head in. No one will notice that either... (I don't recall seeing gloves on hands... didn't being in prison teach you anything?)

I don't even want to get into the machinations of Hussan and the daughter, Kayla. Now I think her BF is a good guy but the smirking flunky who arrests him is a bad guy pretending to be a good guy. (Smirking is never a good sign especially on 24.)

OH NO!! Renee pushed Vlad too hard and he knocks her down! So being like Jack she uses her knife on him about 500 times and OMG! Not Jack! Yes she did, she turned around and got Jack in the abdomen. (Wasn't it bad enough we had to worry about him surviving the poison gas last hour and now he has to run around saving the world with a bandage on his stomach?) Being Jack it's just a minor wound, a mere mortal would die but not Jack.

How does Hastings, who hasn't had a cue about anything the past 5 hours or so, know Renee had sex with Vlad?

You have to hand it to all the 24 bad guys. They know their enemy's location without even having to Goggle Map it. Not to mention there isn't a tunnel that they can't use to get around town, or under the White House for that matter. This time they don't have to kill Vlad and his gang, Renee and Jack did it for them.

Next time on 24, Jack is hung up and wired. (Sigh, don't they ever learn that Jack's lethal when strung up, but then again dead men tell no tales do they...)

On Twitter, Annie Wersching was getting all types of praise for her performance. On Facebook and Twitter, she's quite good with the fans. Love her posts.

Annie Wersching is a phenomenol actress and most definitely deserves an award for her top notch performance! Wow, she is really living her part! She had me in tears. Kudos to her! Hope her 24 role will open doors for even greater roles! (and awards)

On Twitter, Annie Wersching was getting all types of praise for her performance. On Facebook and Twitter, she's quite good with the fans. Love her posts.

Annie Wersching is a phenomenol actress and most definitely deserves an award for her top notch performance! Wow, she is really living her part! She had me in tears. Kudos to her! Hope her 24 role will open doors for even greater roles! (and awards)

She is phenomenal! She's vulnerable, scary or off the chart mental depending on the the scene. She absolutely deserves an Emmy.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Fox drama series '24' has shut down production so that star Kiefer Sutherland can undergo surgery for a ruptured cyst.

The rupture happened earlier last week, but production continued through Friday with scenes that did not involve Sutherland, who also serves as an executive producer on the real-time drama.

Filming then was suspended until late this week, when Sutherland is expected to return to work.

"While Kiefer Sutherland is frustrated to miss even one day of work, he and Fox decided together that it would be best to complete this minor elective procedure now," the actor's publicist said in a statement, which did not provide further information about Sutherland's condition.

Added producing studio 20th TV, "We hope to resume production shortly and do not anticipate any disruption in the broadcast of this season's episodes."

11PM to 1AM: Bazhaev/Pop didn't like Jack's impression of a German bad guy so ordered him slung up by his wrists and tortured till he gave a straight story. The Russian goon who obviously never heard of Jack Bauer used jumper cables to cauterize Jack's stab wound. Once Jack confirmed that he would be OK he did what he always does and snapped the Russian's neck between his legs and managed to get down. He then shot 5 or 6 more Russians and went to talk to Bazhaev/Pop.

Evidently Pop runs a failing restaurant and was preparing Borscht in case someone wandered in looking for food. He and Jack redecorated the dining room and Pop shot up a bunch of the placesetting and wine glasses until Jack got tired of the whole thing and whacked Pop with a table. Pop negotiated "The Deal" with the WH for immunity and called his surviving son Josef only to find out that Son #1 had stolen the rods for some unknown reason and was trying to sell them to Farhad. Just as he managed to convince sonny boy to return someone spotted him with a red laser beam and shot him dead. (It must be tough to become fatherless in less than 2 hours.)

Meanwhile back at CTU Hastings gets a phone call from the W.H. Chief of Staff who informs Hastings that someone is going down and it ain't gonna be HIM and it better not be Hastings so all they have left is Renee and the C.O.S is sending a lawyer from the Justice Dept to take Renne's statement. The lawyer turns out to be Omarosa who was last seen on The Apprentice. Chloe is highly suspicious of Omarosa and Hastings and as soon as she can she tells Jack what is happening.

Dana/Twit is in the woods waiting to talk turkey to Kevin and his hillbilly friend. Just in case someone tries to bother her she puts a silencer on her gun.

Jack doesn't take kindly to blaming Renee so he interrupts the discussion and tells lady lawyer Omarosa that they are leaving. Unfortunately since Jack has not been in action for awhile, he threatens the first CTU guard by telling him he doesn't know who he is messing with but doesn't notice that there is a second guard behind the door who tasers Jack.

Meanwhile, Josef dropped his cell phone and Chloe hears Farhad and his flunkies talking about where to take the rods. One of the flunkies notices the phone and since it wasn't a Sprint phone, he smashes it with his foot.

Farhad finds that his buds aren't his buds after all and he finds himself surrounded and agrees that they will use the Rods on a dirty bomb in NY. He tells the turncoat that he knows someone who can help them with the bomb and asks to use the phone. Once he gets about 20 feet away he hits the henchman with a wrench but he wasn't far enough away and the rest of the new foreign enemies start hunting him. Farhad makes a call to CTU and asks for protection and make it fast!

Hastings had wanted Jack to find Josef but now will make a deal with Jack will go get Farhad, Renee goes free if Jack is in to the end. Jack says DEAL! However it all works out because Cole is off looking for Dana, the new kid, Owen, is tasked to go get Farhad, do it now. Lucky for him, Jack will go with him.

Back to Dana, she watches as 2 ladies leave Kevin and Nick the Hillybilly's van, gets out to go make a deal with them and just as she is about to confront them a van drives up driven by Cole. Naturally, neither Kevin or Nick notice the headlights or screeching tires. She tells Cole about being Jenny and he decides to confront Kevin and Nick. Kevin makes a deal to leave with the money and go back to the hills but Nick has other ideas. Cole had taken Kevin's gun but Nick had a knife and became peeved that Kevin didn't want to kill Cole and go back to the other plan to make Dana/Twit find other places to rob. He stabs Kevin and goes after Cole and it looked dicey for awhile until Kevin yells Jenny with his dying breath. Nick should have gone back home because now he's going to go to his final resting place. (The swamp that just happens to be beside the van, but we don't find that out till the next week.)

Re: 24 Season 8 Suffice it to say, I'm so far behind I may never catch up.

1AM to 3AM Kayla has run off with Tarin who escaped from Hassan's guards. We think he's a good guy. Dana and Cole wrap up Kevin and Nick's bodies like mummies and push them into the water. (This subplot will never end, I just know it!)

When Jack finds Farhad he's pretty much dead but Jack screams at the EMT to keep him alive! Doesn't work. So they do the next best thing, they load him up in an ambulance to fool the killers and put him in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes and an EKG monitor to lure the killers out in the open. Enter Marcos. He has a suicide vest on and with the help of Owen, makes his way to the 3rd floor so he can kill Farhad again. Chloe in the nick of time disables the vest.

Somewhere during the hour Jack tells Renee, “You have me!" He wants them to be together.

Marcos jumps out a window to escape Jack but survives and runs back into the hospital and locks himself in some sort of chamber and with the help of a cohort who has his best interests at heart works to redo the disabled vest so he can blow himself up. (No mention of virgins though.)

Dana and Cole arrive back at CTU and Hastings is waiting for them at the elevator. He tells them both they are on probation and Dana is demoted and Chloe is now her boss. Dana accepts the demotion, gets her TV remote control and hands it to Chloe. Arlo apologizes to Dana and wants to know where Kevin is. She says he's gone. (HEH)

Marcos gets the vest detonator fixed but Jack brings his mom to the window and she begs him not to harm himself. He tells her a bunch of anti-American gibberish but Jack sends her away and with his really mean face tells Marcos that if there is a dirty bomb that Jack will personally take Marcos' mother there and contaminate her and she will die a horrible, painful death, so he puts the detonator device down and opens the door.

24 Terrorists always have the best technology and can do things in 5 seconds that take CTU 40 minutes. The terrorist who strapped Marcos with the vest knows that Marcos has had a change of heart so he sets off a remote control. With his dying breath Marcos says Tarin is the leader!!!!! Poor Marcos. Fini.

We see Kayla and Tarin in the hotel room, because she was busy doing other things she didn't answer her phone. Too bad because her mother has come back to New York and thanks to Jack, she and Hassan know about Tarin and the dirty bomb plot. When Kayla finally answers, she learns the worst and tells her mother where she is. Is it too late? Watch next week's episode

The only good thing Dana/whatshername did is scoop Kayla up and move her out of the range of the explosion.

The Dana story is a mess, did the writers need filler material? WHO with a super-duper, top secret clearance would let that scuzzy man into CTU and why would he be allowed by security to roam around and into the inner bowels of CTU? HOW could that happen without being shot or at least tasered?

I'm betting on Chloe to establish communications so she can talk to Jack, somehow! What IS her hubby's name, Morris? We haven't seen him this year, maybe he'll be back to help with communications. (Shouldn't there be a backup option?)

In a joint decision made by 24’s star and executive producer Kiefer Sutherland, executive producer and showrunner Howard Gordon, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Imagine Entertainment and Fox Broadcasting Company, it was determined that the acclaimed series will end its remarkable eight-season run. Jack Bauer’s last day on FOX will conclude when the final two hours of “Day Eight” air Monday, May 24 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). As the countdown to the series’ climactic conclusion races on, the final 11 hours will air uninterrupted Mondays (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Multiple award-winning series star Kiefer Sutherland reflected on the show’s run: “This has been the role of a lifetime, and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who made it possible. While the end of the series is bittersweet, we always wanted 24 to finish on a high note, so the decision to make the eighth season our last was one we all agreed upon. This feels like the culmination of all our efforts from the writers to the actors to our fantastic crew and everyone at Fox. Looking ahead to the future, Howard Gordon and I are excited about the opportunity to create the feature film version of 24. But when all is said and done, it is the loyal worldwide fan base that made it possible for me to have the experience of playing the role of Jack Bauer, and for that I am eternally grateful.”

Executive producer and showrunner Howard Gordon said, “Kiefer and I have loved every minute of making 24, but we all believe that now is the right time to call it a day. I echo his sentiments of gratitude toward the show’s amazing creative team, as well as the studio and network who have always believed in us and shown us unbelievable support.”

“24 is so much more than just a TV show – it has redefined the drama genre and created one of the most admired action icons in television history,” said Peter Rice, Chairman, Entertainment, Fox Networks Group. Kevin Reilly, President, Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company added, “We are extremely proud of this groundbreaking series and will be forever thankful to Kiefer, the producers, the cast and crew for everything they’ve put into 24 over the years. It’s truly been an amazing and unforgettable eight days.”

“We are so grateful to Kiefer and Howard who have really poured their hearts and souls into making this show over the past eight seasons,” commented Gary Newman and Dana Walden, Chairmen, Twentieth Century Fox Television. “To everyone who contributed to this iconic series over its amazing run, we want to extend our heartfelt appreciation for your incredible work.”

Added Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer, “I’m so proud to have been a part of 24, which has become such a cultural phenomenon. And to Kiefer and Howard and everyone who has worked on the show, many thanks.”

Now in its eighth season with Kiefer Sutherland starring as the heroic Jack Bauer, the inventive and suspenseful 24 has been nominated for a total of 68 Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006. Over the course of seven seasons, Sutherland garnered seven Emmy nominations and one win for Outstanding Lead Actor – Drama Series. While the series gained global recognition, Sutherland’s portrayal of the legendary character penetrated the American psyche like no other dramatic television character to become part of the English lexicon.

The first six seasons were set in Los Angeles, and following the strike-induced delay of Season Seven, “24: Redemption,” a two-hour film bridging Seasons Six and Seven, was set in Africa. Washington, D.C. was the setting for Season Seven, and the final season of 24 finds Jack Bauer thwarting a terrorist attack in New York.

At the conclusion of Season Eight, 24 will have a produced a total of 194 episodes (including “24: Redemption”), making it one of the longest-running action television shows in history.

Tune in Monday, March 29 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) for the next all-new installment of 24 and Monday, April 5 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) for a special two-hour episode.

Created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, 24 is a production of 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Television in association with Teakwood Lane Productions. Howard Gordon, Evan Katz, David Fury, Manny Coto, Brannon Braga, Brad Turner, Alex Gansa, Kiefer Sutherland and Brian Grazer are executive producers, while Chip Johannessen and Patrick Harbinson serve as co-executive producers. Brad Turner will direct the series finale.

The groundbreaking action drama will air its final real-time episode in May, the victim of a confluence of circumstances: a swelling budget, declining ratings and creative fatigue.

Yet for fans of Jack Bauer, there remains hope. Studio 20th TV is developing a theatrical film that takes Bauer to Europe, and showrunner and executive producer Howard Gordon says other possibilities are being explored as well.

“There are other possible iterations of Jack Bauer and his world,” Gordon said (full Q&A with Gordon about series ending here).

The writing has been on the wall for the show all season, which Gordon said felt like “senior year of high school” to star Kiefer Sutherland.

Because of the constant upward spiral of cast and creative team salaries, any drama begins to carry serious financial weight after its fifth year. Sources say Fox paid a hefty $5 million per episode license fee to 20th TV.

Meanwhile, the show’s ratings dropped 16% this season to a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating including DVR — still healthy numbers for a scripted drama, yet not enough to overcome the program’s increasing cost, a budget that was set to climb once again since contracts for Sutherland, Gordon and other key players expire this season.

Then there’s the show’s creative struggle. How many times have “24” characters declared that a looming crisis will be addressed “within the hour,” or has Bauer struggled to gain the respect of the latest CTU chief? Gordon says the show’s writers felt they had exhausted the real-time possibilities for Bauer and never came up with a truly compelling idea for Day 9.